Salty Dog

Salt half of it. A full rim leaves you no escape once the drink turns savory, while a half rim lets you turn the glass and choose sip by sip. Wipe a cut grapefruit around the outside edge only, then roll that edge through the salt.

More than you'd expect. Coarse kosher or flaky sea salt clings in a broken layer you can taste through, while fine table salt forms a solid crust and dumps a mouthful of sodium at once. Iodized salt leaves a metallic note that grapefruit picks up instantly.

It works, but check the label first. Most bottled grapefruit is sweetened and heat-treated, which strips out the bitterness the salt exists to soften, and the drink lands flat and candied. If it's all you have, add a squeeze of fresh lemon to put an edge back.

Ruby and pink are sweeter with less bitterness, so they suit anyone who finds grapefruit too aggressive. White grapefruit keeps its bite and gives the salt something to push against, which is the version most bartenders reach for. Ruby also gives you a rose-colored glass instead of pale yellow.

It does, and you'll land closer to a Paloma. Grapefruit soda is thinner and much sweeter than juice, so cut the vodka back slightly and squeeze in half a lime to compensate. The salt rim still works, though it has less bitterness to counteract.

A classic Salty Dog calls for 45 ml (1.5 oz) Vodka, 120 ml (4 oz) Grapefruit juice. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Salty Dog is roughly 11% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it a relatively light, sessionable drink — similar in strength to a beer.